Chapter 61: Chapter 61: Confusion–Between Game and Life

Am I hallucinating?

I’m floating above a hospital bed in the Intensive Care Unit in W City Hospital. Seeing a blurry form in the bed.

Is that…could that be me?

Monitors sing their electronic song, doctors and nurses chatter. I catch disjointed bits and pieces of medical terminology, but I can’t make out anything.

My mother continues to beg me to come back. “JOSH! Can you hear me?”

The doctors and nurses ask her to leave. Hey! That’s my mother you’re kicking out of my hospital room! Dad does NOT sound happy. Damon rushes in.

“JOSH!”

“Blaze? Blaze?”

That’s Kaline’s voice from the game. Her concern cuts through the surreal vision. The hospital room, the life-saving equipment, the doctors and nurses, and my family all vanish.

I pant hard, back in my body, with my tawny striped paws splayed out on the dirt. Calm down, Blaze. Josh. Whoever I am.

I don’t know how death works. Heck, I don’t even know how life works. Are people supposed to have death flashbacks once they pass on? Was that where all the stories of ghosts originated?

I’ve heard about out-of-body experiences and astral projection. Did I just experience that? I never believed in that stuff. Or in ghosts, really. But suddenly, I was a ghost, haunting my hospital room, for lack of a better word. Yet I was still alive.

Maybe what I saw was the moment that I left my body for good and traveled here. But why did I have it now? Why not when I first isekaied?

“Blaze?”

Kaline’s soft hands cup my face, and my skin crawls. Her touch should be comforting, but I can’t bear it. However, her distress is even worse, and so I sit quietly, compliant, letting her comfort me, even though it’s the last thing I want right now/

I know that sounds selfish. From the anxiety coming through the bond, Kaline suffered along with me. She has no idea that I was once a human. For that matter, she doesn’t know that her life is a simulation. A video game that people play to amuse themselves, like I did with Damon…

Damon!

Maybe my memory of him is what triggered my vision or hallucination. Maybe it unlocked the memory of my death. Ugh! Hovering above my body was so traumatic. Of course, I would’t like to experience the excruciating pain of dying, either. But at least I’d feel something. Being disembodied is for the birds. No wonder ghosts in stories and legends are so restless!

“Blaze.”

Kaline wraps her arms around me, burying her face in my fur.

“JOSH.”

No, no, not again. I’m sure I’m hallucinating.

I’m dead in the human world. This isn’t one of those stories where I’ll suddenly wake up from a coma as myself again, and find out that everything I experienced was nothing but a dream.

This has got to be some kind of curse. Maybe a lingering effect from the curse someone put on the House of Riddlehoeven. Maybe that mean Mrs. Wheelwright put a hex on me. Or maybe ex-Lady Rosabel did.

I select one of my Anti-Curse Amulets from my Arsenal. Don’t laugh. It’s the best solution I can come up with in the moment. Not that I want to let go of my human life, my parents, and my brother. I can’t communicate with Damon, according to the System…

Yes, that’s it! The System has answers.

What am I thinking? I don’t need one of my amulets. I have to conserve my resources here! Reluctantly, I put it back in my Arsenal.

System! You told me that my previous life is over. Why am I seeing these scenes of my death?

A delay follows. A lengthy delay.

System?

[Reincarnation is supposed to be smooth.]

Is that so? If it’s supposed to be smooth, why did I reincarnate, as you put it, with only some of my memories intact?

[Because you needed to remember playing the game in order to survive. And because you have a soul. You have memories. The process honors that. However, people who are reincarnated into this game and other worlds from gaming and fiction often are confused. They don’t remember everything immediately from their previous lives.]

That’s a lot to unpack. So, what am I experiencing now? Are these memories of my death? Because I don’t remember all this. I remember collapsing during the exam and then waking up here in my new body and new life.

[Yes, these are memories. But they should not have disrupted you so much. Certainly not now that you’re in a good place and have accepted your new life. You have, haven’t you?]

Of course! What’s past is past. I can’t go back. Besides, who wouldn’t want to be a magical tiger in a fantasy world?

But something is nagging at me. I can’t put my finger on it.

[It’s good that you are happy. When you remembered that your brother Damon was playing Lobo, I was concerned that it might be too much of a reminder of your previous life.]

But I can’t change it, System. I can’t. I would only cause Damon and my family distress and tears if I used the game to communicate that I’m alive…as a video game character. Can you imagine? It was hard enough to watch them at the hospital and see their pain.

[You are a good person.]

Anyone would do the same.

Another long pause.

[Not everyone. Some people are attached to their previous lives. They simply cannot let go and accept change.]

“BLAZE!”

Kaline’s urgent tone recalls me to the present. She sounds scared! Her love and her worry surround me, pulling me out of my delirium.

I shake my head and my fur, and when I come to, I’m lying on a kitty bed in a rustic farmhouse, probably Mrs. Threadgood’s. Butterbur, the dragon, and the cat, whose name I never did learn, sprawl close by, slumbering guardians. Mrs. Threadgood is a watchful presence. I can hear laughter and chatter from the imps, as if from far away.

Kaline scratches behind my ears, while Lamant feeds me a Healing Potion and Minette, Vedette, and Niall fuss. How did they get there so fast? And more importantly, how long was I out?

Demos head-butts me, and Gussie flaps in my face. [You scared us all!] Demos sounds grumpy, but there’s real fear lurking underneath.

Nearby, Lobo woofs. [What happened to you? Did those imps put some kind of a spell on you?]

[It would be a cantrip.] Demos sounds authoritative. [Cantrips are low-level spells. Imps are small, and therefore, they would cast smaller spells that are less potent.]

[Oh, so size is always a guarantee of power?] Lobo shakes his head. [Blaze defeated Viscount Rossa, who is bigger.]

I let Lobo and Demos argue about power in proportion to size. That doesn’t matter. Kaline is all that matters. My vision was real, but at the same time, it wasn’t. It was a dream, a hallucination. It doesn’t matter.

i nuzzle Kaline and rub up against her, licking her face. [I’m well. I’m here. I am sorry that I scared you. I don’t know what happened.}

[Well, tell me as much as you can.]

On the spot, I think up a half-truth. [I had another vision. Only it wasn’t a Divine Vision. It was all confusing. I was hovering over myself, and everyone–]

[What? That’s so strange.] Kaline sniffles, blinking back tears. [Was it those old imps?]

[NO! They’re friendly now. I’m not sure what it was. Maybe some kind of a curse?]

That’s the only thing I can think of. Naturally, I can’t ever reveal the truth. I’d probably be sent to some kind of a place for beasts with delusions. Poor Kaline. She deserves as much consideration as my family in my previous life. She is like my family here.

Kaline turns to her father and mother, and Vedette and Niall, and she tells them about my vision. “Blaze thinks that someone tried to curse him. We never did figure out who put that curse on our family. Perhaps it got him?”

In his element, Niall taps his fingers on his chin, thinking. “I’ve learned that the curse was mainly centered around misfortune with beasts. Specifically, losing them.”

“But if Blaze had this out of body thing, we’d lose him, wouldn’t we?” Kaline persists.

“Astral Travel or Astral Projection,” Vedette corrects her. “You haven’t learned about that yet, but it’s time you did, isn’t it, Father and Mother?”

Lamant and Minette exchange glances. “It’s very, very advanced magic for a tiger cub,” Minette says. “And Blaze may have been confused. He did take a hard fall.”

“That he did,” Mrs. Threadgood agrees. “There was that explosion, and he crashed into an imp, and then worked magic! Maybe the fall shook him something fierce.”

Demos, Gussie, and Lobo can all agree on that explanation.

At first, I doubt that Kaline will just swallow what the adults say. But, to my surprise, she squeezes me so tightly that I almost can’t breathe. “Let’s get you home, Blaze,” she murmurs. “We’ll stop and get Mother’s spices, but then we’re just going to relax for the rest of the day.”

My sleepy yawn is all the agreement she needs.

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